Are EV’s really the way to go?
- Thread starter inflames
- Start date
Age is the biggest thing with batteries.
When have you ever seen any type of battery last 10-15 years or more? In anything. I'm sure they will be some kind of built in expiry date anyway, otherwise it's bad for business if they last forever.
Long term, EVs just aren't the answer unless there is a major breakthrough soon to make them smaller and much lighter. Batteries in their current form are not the solution for transport.
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Soldato
Age is the biggest thing with batteries.
When have you ever seen any type of battery last 10-15 years or more? In anything. I'm sure they will be some kind of built in expiry date anyway, otherwise it's bad for business if they last forever.
Long term, EVs just aren't the answer unless there is a major breakthrough soon to make them smaller and much lighter. Batteries in their current form are not the solution for transport.
Usual Masher levels of "thoughts"
I've got an MP3 player for example from 2006 that still holds charge really well. As its not used that much (mainly for travelling) its probably been charged 100 times and I don't think its far off original performance. It certainly holds enough charge to travel for 24 hours and have loads left.
Chemical and mechanical things wear out with usage, Im not sure your really giving us breaking news in this regard!
Why aren't EVs the answer. They offer real world usage now thats good enough for the vast majority, as the faster charging batteries become standard the recharge times aren't really high at all. The infrastructure is improving, quickly.
Smaller, why? The vast majority are buying bigger vehicles even ignoring EV impact. Is this another one of your "real car fans" comments, where you think everyone agrees with your views that we should/could all drive around in Elises?
Lighter why? For the vast majority they don't care how much it weighs within reason. I am sure as ever things will evolve. Faster charging and a really good infrastructure may well see smaller packs at some point in the future, but right now there isn't actually a problem so I am not sure why with progress we NEED to get lighter.
Most items that artificially kill batteries are relatively low value. I expect at some point someone will put forwards legislation to outlaw artificial expiry. Having a chip "kill" something thats in effect perfectly fine is beyond dumb.
Even with that said the cells themselves hold value for other purposes, and the recycling side is improving anyway. (Although there should be more legislation again to ensure easy recycling IMO)
Hydrogen may well evolve into a possibility, however I would hazard a guess it will be the hydrogen that will be a fuel cell powering an EV as opposed to hydrogen burning ICE style.
Due to the fact that whilst hydrogen being burnt directly is better than petrol and diesel on emissions it still creates some nasties that aren't generated when it powers a fuel cell.
I suspect fossil fuel zealots who think hydrogen will give them an equivalent are likely to be disappointed. Again the masses will not care, and will probably prefer the quieter, lower emissions, fuel cell approach.
Soldato
Damn, my EV is 9 years old now. I'd best get ready to throw it in the bin.
I've literally heard (read) the same nonsense repeated from the same people since the day I bought it.
I've literally heard (read) the same nonsense repeated from the same people since the day I bought it.
Soldato
I suspect it will come down, if we continue on the current generation path there will be periods with vast excesses of energy being produced, as such using that as the source of hydrogen fuel would be perfect.
Its difficult to predict the balance we will see and hence its very difficult to predict how much excess there could be, and how frequently.
More nuclear would mean less, more renewables will require much more excess of theoretical capacity and hence far more overshoot at times.
Right now producing hydrogen almost always means using extra fossil fuels to generate that hydrogen, so not commercially sensible or cost effective.
Soldato
Considering the smilies are still the same ones and Nasher is still posting rubbish; what exactly were the forum upgrades? 
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A HFCEV will never be price competitive with a BEV on the fuel. To produce 1 unit of green hydrogen, you need an order of magnitude more electricity. You first split the water, capture the hydrogen, compress it, store it, transport it to destination and then run it through a fuel cell into the vehicles buffer battery.
Each of those steps take huge efficiency losses from the original source energy and can never be competitive with running some electric down a cable and shoving it in a battery.
That’s all before you consider the economics of running a network of fuel filling stations to retail it.
Each of those steps take huge efficiency losses from the original source energy and can never be competitive with running some electric down a cable and shoving it in a battery.
That’s all before you consider the economics of running a network of fuel filling stations to retail it.
Soldato
I think efuel is the way to go. Electric is going to be an alternative like it currently is.
EV's will probably be the cheapest method of transport, especially for people with home chargers, and/or solar.
Every other option is just going to cost more money for the end consumer. Hydrogen and Synthetic / E-fuels require more energy to produce than they give back, then transport to the point of fill up and after all that they are ~30% efficient.
so how many miles/pa during during you ownership and any loss in range ? predominately high/low power charging ?
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Despite the 33% efficiency of hydrogen generation, if we need storage during times of wind/solar plenty and don't have the batteries then other options are limited.
(have UK wind turbines, practically, already been already put in idle mode, due to over-supply)
Hydrogen technology could become UK's forte , we don't have the (economic) lithium supplies, post Ukraine I can see relationship with China for supply/processing, being a lot more acrimonious (high tech export being clamped down, Uighur situation deserves to be similarly deplored like Russia/Ukraine)
Soldato
I like that idea, but ship it to japan to allow them to meet Paris 2050 rather than use on UK passenger cars.
The cars will be the batteries you describe!
The cars will be the batteries you describe!
Soldato
currently yes but I think investment towards efuels will pick up and the overprice, complexity etc will drop. I don't think it'll ever be as cheap as fuel currently is but being real, e-fuels allow you to run old cars and keeping an older car on the road for longer is far more friendly than producing a new car and waiting 10 years for it to "pay off" in a sense of emissions.
Which is fine but the reality is, even at the current absurd prices, electricity is still cheaper, even if synthetic fuels get down to the current prices, BEV is still cheaper over the lifetime of the vehicle.
Running older cars for long periods because the benefits of BEV go well beyond lifecycle emissions, local air quality being one of them. You can bet your bottom dollar that ICE will be banned from most major towns and cities before 2050.
They don’t all London the big smoke for no reason at the end of the day.
Yep I get e-fuels for small scale use.
Even if the cost reduces it still takes 4x/5x the energy to produce the stuff than it gives out. So by default, the startling cost will be 4x/5x. Plus the whole process will need to run on the e-fuels - transport etc… which further increases the cost.
Exactly - and in the years until they are banned the cost to use ICE’s vehicle in cities will increase year on year.
Soldato
The governments revised 2030 strategy includes a boost to hydrogen, iirc the 2050 strategy (not sure if thats still valid) has hydrogen at something close to 50% of "consumption".
Eg 2030 strategy now says "We will aim to double our ambition to up to 10GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030, with at least half coming from green hydrogen and utilising excess offshore wind power to bring down costs. This will not only provide cleaner energy for vital British industries to move away from expensive fossil fuels, but could also be used for cleaner power, transport and potentially heat."
www.gov.uk
As production and consumption increases then its certainly viable to be used in consumer cars. There is also more opportunity in areas of higher utilisation. I think this is one of the main points behind higher load vehicles (eg HGVs) where along with improved AI the "driver" will probably be randomly assigned with the vehicle carrying on after a driver change. Pushing utilisation up massively. The same could happen in regards taxis etc. I remember talking to a yellow cab driver who said he shared the licence with two other drivers, as such the car was on the road basically 100% of the time, bar servicing etc. Thats far easier to achieve with a faster "fuel" refil being available.
I dont think its likely that hydrogen will be the main car choice, but thats not to stop it happening. There is completely a place for vehicles with extended range and faster filling, thats probably quite niche, but niche vehicles exist
Also, using simple economics for predicting how this will pan out long term is risky, it ignores taxation, legislation etc which have a massive ability to change that.
Plus of course as said, energy mix will be very important, the more we move to generation that is variable the higher the ratio of theoretical to normal we have to move to, and hence the more excess that needs to be used will make energy intensive processes that store energy critical and hence they could be subsidised in order to make them economically viable. With the recent push to energy independence these have jumped in priority.
Eg 2030 strategy now says "We will aim to double our ambition to up to 10GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030, with at least half coming from green hydrogen and utilising excess offshore wind power to bring down costs. This will not only provide cleaner energy for vital British industries to move away from expensive fossil fuels, but could also be used for cleaner power, transport and potentially heat."
Major acceleration of homegrown power in Britain’s plan for greater energy independence
Cleaner and more affordable energy to be made in Great Britain under bold plans to boost long-term energy independence, security and prosperity.
As production and consumption increases then its certainly viable to be used in consumer cars. There is also more opportunity in areas of higher utilisation. I think this is one of the main points behind higher load vehicles (eg HGVs) where along with improved AI the "driver" will probably be randomly assigned with the vehicle carrying on after a driver change. Pushing utilisation up massively. The same could happen in regards taxis etc. I remember talking to a yellow cab driver who said he shared the licence with two other drivers, as such the car was on the road basically 100% of the time, bar servicing etc. Thats far easier to achieve with a faster "fuel" refil being available.
I dont think its likely that hydrogen will be the main car choice, but thats not to stop it happening. There is completely a place for vehicles with extended range and faster filling, thats probably quite niche, but niche vehicles exist
Also, using simple economics for predicting how this will pan out long term is risky, it ignores taxation, legislation etc which have a massive ability to change that.
Plus of course as said, energy mix will be very important, the more we move to generation that is variable the higher the ratio of theoretical to normal we have to move to, and hence the more excess that needs to be used will make energy intensive processes that store energy critical and hence they could be subsidised in order to make them economically viable. With the recent push to energy independence these have jumped in priority.
Soldato
After 4 years of EV ownership I don't intend to go back to an ICE car for daily use. I could be tempted by something like the the GR Yaris as a fun car as I always had 2 cars before. Neither of the EVs I've owned lost more than 1% per year averaged over my ownership. First car had covered 40k when I sold it and the current EV has passed 25K. I believe calendar aging of current battery chemistry is unavoidable so would explain the gradual loss I observed.
I think battery capacity/degradation does have the potential to become a future dieselgate, if you read about i3 reported issue where bmw can magically restore the original capacity and theoretical range, but in practise, owners find the real world range is not the same;
Ideally you need an independantly certified wltp for 2nd hand owner, otherwise the manufacturer is marking their own homework reporting the battery capacity (how low do you allow the remaining range to be before you panic, to check it yourself)
Once bevs have winter 70mph wltp in the >250mile range though, if they are just loosing a percent a year, then, fine.
VW had had to refund id3 heat pump purchasers when they were found not to deliver better cold range, I don't know whether they were being extremely cautious following dieselgate, or there was really irrefutable 3rd party data.
Ideally you need an independantly certified wltp for 2nd hand owner, otherwise the manufacturer is marking their own homework reporting the battery capacity (how low do you allow the remaining range to be before you panic, to check it yourself)
Once bevs have winter 70mph wltp in the >250mile range though, if they are just loosing a percent a year, then, fine.
VW had had to refund id3 heat pump purchasers when they were found not to deliver better cold range, I don't know whether they were being extremely cautious following dieselgate, or there was really irrefutable 3rd party data.